


i was dead when i woke up this morning

by iskra (kiira)



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 22:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2708606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiira/pseuds/iskra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>you know how dirt feels under your nails and you wake screaming because your dreams are a silent expanse of the Austrian countryside and silent screaming soldiers (you know how this story ends)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i was dead when i woke up this morning

There was a creature named Mircalla and she knew the shape of men’s spines as she curled them between her fingers (she was beautiful, yes, and you do not remember how the world glistened from her eyes.)

(a girl name Calla who had)

Mircalla took and took and took and (she drank the blood of innocents and smiled bloody smile)

There is a something named Carmilla and she knows the horror of a dark forever (the warm curve of bodies, the whisper of _i love you i love you i love you_ ) you are a something named Carmilla and you know how dirt feels under your nails and you wake screaming because your dreams are a silent expanse of the Austrian countryside and silent screaming soldiers (you know how this story ends)

(a girl named Calla who was whole)

//

A breath of pure relief comes with reinvention (Mother does not understand; Mother will never understand).

You are still beautiful, glittering Mircalla to her (Carmilla is too soft, too lovely) (Carmilla is a garden; Mircalla is a stone).

Your chest tightens when she calls you wrong because that creature is dead (you are a something now; you do not exist; you are a garden).

(Calla died at a ball; you kissed her goodbye; you are glad her child’s eyes never saw the horror the creature committed) the horror you committed)

//

“I love you,” Laura whispers into your mouth, your collarbone, your stomach, and you do not know how.

(You are a creature, sometimes; are those dreams?)

Does Laura know?

//

Sometimes the dreams are more than you can bear and you walk out of the room, out into the night (there is some small comfort in air that is cold; in a room with no wall) (you could not sleep indoors for weeks after you dug your way out of the earth).

Laura follows you, with the quilt from your bed and an assortment of scarves and gloves and sometimes a coat. (She always wraps you in the quilt first and then sits next to you, quiet in the open air).

“I can’t remember her face,” you whisper, and Laura is still. “She died the same night as me, they all died. I came back,” and you don’t usually talk about your family (you didn’t dream of them, not this night but the cold air reminded you of that night so many years ago and you realized that you cannot remember her face).

“What was her name?”

You swallow hard, because she’s precious to you (a tiny flicker of Calla). “Elisabeth,” and Laura is quiet, leans her head against your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles.

(The next day you come in from classes and there is a printout of a portrait on your bed; in Laura’s careful print is written _Elisabeth Karnstein_ and the painting is old and cracked but it’s _her_ and you swallow back tears; you are more of Calla) (you are more whole).

//

You have been buried three times (you do not remember the first; you long to forget the second; the third is like a wonder)

Calla died first (you stomach split open; your blood staining your hands as you tried to keep from dying). She was so damn young, you remember, and she had life forced back under her skin, between her bones, into her heart (Mircalla was born).

Mircalla was a force; was a don’t; was a spit out love next to blood

(You like to pretend that you are not Mircalla but _oh_ you are)

She fell in love; Mircalla fell in love (she was not Mircalla then, she was not Carmilla, she was an in between) and she watched as her mother killed that love and then Mircalla was killed.

(You lose words for what happened to you after Elle was killed; your mouth dries up and your heart pierces blank screeching white because language simply fails; there is a limit of language to describe certain horrors and you fit your mouth around the ideas of sounds and that is the closest you can get.)

The sometimes Mircalla was shut up in a coffin, bathed in blood and she was buried below the earth (you think you lost your mind down there; you think you remember Holy).

Last Carmilla was buried (you dug your sword into the light and you were consumed and it burned). There is something lovely, something final in the way your body turns to ash (ashes to ashes, dust to dust) you hope Laura cannot see you die.

(You wake up on the edge of the cavern and your nails are edged in dirt; you do not remember clawing your way out).

Some small part of you cries, because this was your last hope (you are never going to die) but the rest of you stumbles over rocks because you are not buried below the earth (and Laura is alive).

//

 Once upon a time there was a creature named Mircalla, and it loved its mother; it could tear out hearts and lap up the blood of innocents (you were Mircalla, you remind yourself).

Once upon a time, there was a something named Mircalla and she loved her mother; she could tear out hearts and lap up the blood of innocents (Laura loves you; she kisses you and holds you when you wake up screaming; her love does not come with an if).

Once upon a time, there was a girl name Mircalla and she loved her mother; she could tear out hearts and lap up the blood of innocents and she watched as her mother killed the only thing she ever loved.

(Once upon a time, there was a girl name Carmilla and she was, is, will be, loved)


End file.
